getPotentialParents: Get potential parents for animals with unknown parents

In nprcgenekeepr: Genetic Tools for Colony Management

Get potential parents for animals with unknown parents

Description

Usage

getPotentialParents(
  ped,
  minSireAge = NULL,
  minDamAge = NULL,
  minParentAge = lifecycle::deprecated(),
  maxGestationalPeriod = NULL,
  gestationTable = NULL
)

Arguments

ped	the pedigree information in data.frame format. Pedigree (req. fields: id, sire, dam, gen, population). This requires complete pedigree information.
minSireAge	numeric minimum age in years for a male to be proposed as a potential sire. NULL (default) looks up the floor for each candidate's species via getSpeciesMinBreedingAge (falling back to 2 years when the species is missing or unknown); a supplied value overrides that floor for all male candidates. Candidates with missing birth dates are not considered.
minDamAge	numeric minimum age in years for a female to be proposed as a potential dam. NULL (default) looks up the floor for each candidate's species via getSpeciesMinBreedingAge (falling back to 2 years when the species is missing or unknown); a supplied value overrides that floor for all female candidates.
minParentAge	Deprecated scalar minimum parent age. Supplying it sets both minSireAge and minDamAge; use those sex-specific parameters instead.
maxGestationalPeriod	integer maximum number of days between conception and birth for the species being analyzed (a conservative upper bound, e.g. 210 for rhesus whose typical gestation is about 165 days). When NULL (the default) the window is looked up per animal from the species column of ped via getSpeciesGestation, falling back to 210 days for animals whose species is missing or unrecognized; supply an explicit integer to use one fixed window for every animal. It is used two ways: (1) a sire who exited the colony between conception (birth - maxGestationalPeriod) and birth is still retained as a candidate; and (2) a female who delivered another offspring within maxGestationalPeriod days of the focal birth is excluded as a candidate dam, because a female bears one offspring at a time. The sire check uses presence at conception while the dam check uses presence at birth; this asymmetry is intentional – a sire need only be present to conceive, whereas a dam must be present through the pregnancy to give birth.
gestationTable	optional data.frame (columns species, gestation) passed to getSpeciesGestation for the per-animal lookup when maxGestationalPeriod is NULL. Defaults to NULL, which uses the bundled speciesGestation table.

Value

a list of list with each internal list being made up of an animal id (id), a vector of possible sires (sires) and a vector of possible dams (dams). The id must be defined while the vectors sires and dams can be empty.

Examples

library(nprcgenekeepr)
ped <- nprcgenekeepr::rhesusPedigree
## getPotentialParents needs a logical fromCenter column flagging
## colony-born animals; add one if your pedigree lacks it.
ped$fromCenter <- TRUE
potentialParents <- getPotentialParents(
  ped = ped, minSireAge = 2, minDamAge = 2, maxGestationalPeriod = 210L
)
## Each element pairs a focal id with candidate sires and dams.
potentialParents[[1L]]

nprcgenekeepr documentation built on July 26, 2026, 5:06 p.m.